A few weeks ago I started redecorating our kitchen.
It is the one room in the house that I would love to afford to totally change.
Unfortunately, the finances are simply non-existent, so I am having to make do
and update what I can myself. Our kitchen is in the basement of the house and
only has one window. It has one wall which is underground which has been tanked
to stop the damp. The previous owners decided to lay a thick dark grey floor
and paint the walls brown. Admittedly a lightish brown, but brown all the same.
There was a really frustrating part of floor near
the sink which moved whenever you stood on it. After a year of sliding around
on it, I finally decided to pull up the floor and see if there was anything
underneath. I was amazed to find some tiles under there. Slightly 80's pale
terracotta, but light and reflective which are both very important in our dark
basement. A week later, I decided, with my husband's approval of course, to
pull up the rest of the floor. This ended up being far harder than I had
imagined, although luckily it didn't take long.
Unfortunately, in the corner near the tanked wall,
I discovered rather large pools of water simply standing underneath the
flooring. I realised we might have a bit of a problem, so I checked on the
internet for the best dehumidifiers and quickly discovered
that they are not as expensive as I would have thought.
However, after looking at dehumidifiers, I spoke to
my Dad, who said that it could be wet purely because the floor couldn't
breathe. Thinking about it, this made sense. The tiles had been covered with a
plastic layer of underlay and then on top of that was all the laminate. I
decided to clean up the floor and then see what happened over the next few
days.
Luckily, two weeks later and the water has not
reappeared. The damp smell which had lingered in the kitchen since we moved in
has also gone. I think what the previous owner had unwittingly done was to
cover up the gap under the skirting board which the tanked wall needs air to
circulate through. Luckily our problem with damp was resolved quickly and easily, but if you have a similar problem, I would recommend checking Appliances Direct's website for house dehumidifiers.
Our kitchen now has the original tiled floor and white walls. The walls initially felt quite scary, I have never had white walls before, but they look good. In the coming weeks I shall be painting the units and the ceiling too!
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.
